Farewell to the Festival

Here's an edited version of Brief City, the 1952 documentary recording a walk around the South Bank after the closure of the Festival of Britain, and a look back to when it was open in 1951. Hugh Casson, the Festival's chief architectural planner, wanders round the rubbish-strewn site with Patrick O'Donovan, who narrates the film.

Even in its edited form the film shines as a record of optimistic planning, and melancholic rememberance. Breathtaking shots of the Skylon and the Dome of Discovery are mixed with scenes of festival-goers cowering beneath brollies in heavy rain (1951 was a notoriously wet summer), elderly women drinking tea or schoolkids being lined up for photos. 'There were no resounding proud messages here,' says O'Donovan. 'No-one was taught to hate anything. At a time when nations were becoming more assertive and more intolerant, here was a national exhibition that avoided these emotions and tried to stay rational.' Here were grand aims stated modestly, or modest aims stated grandly, depending on how you looked at them. It seems to perfectly characterise the legacy of the Festival.